Romantic Poetry and the Fragmentary Imperative

Uses the concept of the poetic fragment to draw connections between romantic poetry and modern literature and literary theory.

Romantic Poetry and the Fragmentary Imperative locates Byron (and, to a lesser extent, Joyce) within a genealogy of romantic poetry understood not so much as imaginative self-expression or ideological case study but rather as what the German romantics call "romantische poesie"—an experimental form of poetry loosely based on the fragmentary flexibility and acute critical self-consciousness of Socratic dialogue. The book is therefore less an attempt to present yet another theory of romanticism than it is an effort to recover a more precise sense of the relationship between Byron's fragmentary or "workless" poetic and romantic poetry generally, and to articulate connections between romantic poetry and modern literature and literary theory. The book also argues that the "exigency" or "imperative" of the fragmentary works of Schlegel, Byron, Joyce, and Blanchot is not so much the expression of a style as it is an acknowledgment of what remains unthought in thinking.

“…a sophisticated study and informed study of both the theory and practice of the Romantic fragment, as formulated in Germany by Friedrich Schlegel … From the range of reference alone in this [book], Romantic Poetry and the Fragmentary Imperative is an ambitious and capacious study of Romanticism that illuminates the ongoing and inextricable relation between literature and philosophy.” — The Wordsworth Circle

"Illuminating and even exhilarating to read, this book makes a powerful case for the contention that from Schlegel through Byron and Nietzsche to Joyce and Richard Rorty, the ironic strain of German romanticism—German romantic irony, one might say—has a continually liberating effect on philosophy, literary theory, and literature itself." — James A. W. Heffernan, author of Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery

"Strathman offers a significant new perspective on the relationships between philosophy and literature, through his discussions of Byron and Joyce. He further (and productively) expands the book's scope by establishing connections to ordinary language philosophy, most specifically the work of Stanley Cavell. These features distinguish the book from other work in the field and give it a special appeal, especially in the author's readings of literary works. In particular the book offers one of the most compelling readings of Byron's Don Juan in recent years." — Arkady Plotnitsky, coeditor of Idealism without Absolutes: Philosophy and Romantic Culture

Christopher A. Strathman is Assistant Professor of English at Baylor University.